


When You Speak, I Hear Silence

by LaurentheFlute



Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Music, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28249905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurentheFlute/pseuds/LaurentheFlute
Summary: And she doesn't know why, but his gaze holds her, and for the rest of the show she is singing to *him*, even though the message is for everyone, even though she always shifts her attention from person to person, giving everyone that moment of connection. Her words are meant to be a challenge, aimed at the heart. But tonight, it feels like a conversation—a one-sided conversation, her words and his meaningful silence.
Relationships: Red/Subject | The Boxer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	When You Speak, I Hear Silence

She can _feel_ his eyes watching her as she sings. Three hundred people present, and a thousand more viewing the stream, and yet there is something so intense in his gaze that it sends shivers down her spine and almost stops the words in her throat. She scans the crowd with her own eyes, as though she could possibly hope to pick out just one person among the faces in front of her, illuminated only by the stage lighting, turned anonymous by the darkness—

Except she _can_ see him, or a glimpse of him. Maybe it is because the rest of the crowd is singing along or swaying with the music, and he is perfectly still, his face open. Listening with his entire body, rapt.

And she doesn't know why, but his gaze holds her, and for the rest of the show she is singing to _him_ , even though the message is for everyone, even though she always shifts her attention from person to person, giving everyone that moment of connection. Her words are meant to be a challenge, aimed at the heart. But tonight, it feels like a conversation—a one-sided conversation, her words and his meaningful silence.

  
***

  
He's at the next show, and the next. Always watching with that little smile on his face.

And she can't help it—curiosity gets the better of her, and even though she doesn't make a practice of it, she puts a query for him into the system. She has nothing to go off of, but she knows people, she knows how to coax the system into giving her what she needs. Yet her queries return nothing. It's as though he does not exist. She tries again, and again. The man's a ghost.

So at the next show, when he's there—of course he's there—she tracks him down afterward, bypassing the throngs of people clamoring to speak with her, parting them like water. He's at the bar, a shot glass in his hand, jacket slung over the back of his barstool.

"Hey," she says.

He smiles at her, raises his glass to her. "Hey."

No fawning, no hesitation, none of the barely contained enthusiasm that she expects from fans after a performance. It's almost hard to imagine he's the same man who watches her singing with such intensity, except that he still has that air of openness, of listening.

She takes the seat beside him, gestures to the bartender, who's busy with other customers.

"Good show tonight," the man says.

"Thanks."

"But you know that."

She glances sideways at him, wondering if he's mocking her, but there is no malice in his voice. It's an observation, not a judgment. 

"I guess I'm confident, most of the time," she concedes. Not arrogant—honest. There's no point in pretending to be unaware of the effect her voice, her words, have on people. False humility would be contrary to the honesty she tries to live by.

"Most of the time? Which means, sometimes…?"

"Sometimes I still get jitters." She places her order, turns back to him. "I like it that way. It keeps it feeling real, from becoming routine."

"And once you're routine, you're background noise," he says, continuing her thought, "and once you're background noise, no one _listens_ to you anymore. And it might as well just be programming at that point, right? Something automated, like everything else?"

"Who _are_ you?"

He grins at her, all catlike delight. "Why?"

She said the wrong thing. She ought to have casually asked him what his name was, maybe made a joke of introducing herself—blatantly unnecessary and therefore, through humor, a good ice-breaker. But instead she has given herself away.

"I don't recognize you from anywhere," she says, "and I know a lot of people."

"And you'd remember me if you'd seen me before, is that it?" He sits up straighter, tugs at the collar of his shirt, runs a hand through his hair, makes a show of preening. "This a face you wouldn't forget, huh?"

He's handsome, up close. Tall, broad-shouldered, well-built, but there's a slimness to his muscularity that makes her think of dancers, a fluidity that makes every motion beautiful. Dark ruffled hair, dark eyes glittering with intelligence, and a full-lipped, easy smile. It's the sort of smile she could get used to seeing.

And he is _shamelessly_ flirting with her, trying to provoke a reaction. She wonders if he knows, somehow, that she's looked him up.

"You're not registered," she says, lifting her chin and smiling back, taking the bait.

" _I won't become a number in the system_ ," he said, her own lyrics back at her. "I figured you'd understand, if anyone would."

She laughs. "So you _do_ know the words."

"You thought I didn't?"

"Usually people sing along," she says, and then she realizes that she is admitting to having watched him closely enough to notice, and paying enough attention to remember. But she just confessed to looking him up, so the interest is already out there.

"I don't come out here to hear _me_ sing," he says with a smile. "I can do that any time. You're a lot better at it than I am, believe me."

"I'd have to hear you to make that call."

"It'll take a lot more than just this," he says, holding up his shot glass again, "to make that happen."

She raises a hand to flag down the bartender. "Excuse me," she calls out, and beside her, the man slams his empty shot glass on the bar and throws his head back laughing, filling the bar with a warm, mellifluous baritone that she very much wants to hear again.

  
***

  
Greeting fans after a show feels kind of like a receiving line. Often they have questions or want an explanation. Some of them linger a little too long sharing their own interpretations, their own writings, and she grits her teeth and smiles and is glad for their enthusiasm even if she sometimes finds it draining. The ones who wait for her are fine. They never cross a line.

But there are others, sometimes, who catch her alone in the darkness, who find their way backstage.

She leaves the green room, and its door slams shut, taking its square of yellow light with it. The sound echoes off cold tiles. She can hear the muffled sound of piped-in music from the concert hall, and the buzz of many voices in conversation. She wants a drink—she wants company. She's gotten used to seeing him after shows, to spending hours at the bar or out walking underneath the brilliant-colored night sky, talking about Cloudbank and art and people and what it means to be alive. The sort of questions that are the backbone of her music and always have been. And, of course, he makes her laugh. He always makes her laugh.

She's looking forward to laughter tonight. The hallway is dim and cold, and she feels unusually lonely, if only because she's become accustomed to spending time with someone who sees her as just Red, the woman who happens to make music, and not Red the singer, the icon, the _object_ of admiration. She gets to be a _person_ in his company, and that's refreshing.

Someone is waiting for her in the shadows, someone slight and unfamiliar.

"Red," this stranger says, approaching her, "I need to speak with you."

"Thanks, but I have somewhere to be," she says. She keeps walking, but the stranger intercepts her, puts his hands on her shoulders. She tries to step away, but his grip tightens and he looms closer. 

"Listen," he says. "Your music–"

"I'm glad you enjoy it," she says. "But someone is waiting for me. Please let me go."

"You don't understand. Your music, Red—it's changed everything for me. _Everything_." His fingers are so tight on her shoulders they feel like they'll leave bruises. "I need to talk to you—I need you to listen to me—I know you'll understand…"

"Let me go," she says, but instead, he tries to pull her closer. She struggles and tries to push him away. He grabs her wrists.

Footsteps down the hallway. Then, "Red? Are you there?"

She has never been so glad to hear her name, never been so glad to hear a familiar voice. It takes him no more than a moment to size up the situation.

"Let her go," the man she has come to consider a friend says, and his voice is firm, an understated but unmistakable warning.

"Who is he?" the thin man hisses.

"I'm her bodyguard. And if you don't release her within the next three seconds, I am going to take you apart with my bare hands."

It's like watching a transformation. The playful kindness she knows has been replaced by cold iron will. He counts down, and a breath after he gets to _one_ , he has crossed the distance and his fist has collided wetly with the man's head and the man crumples beside her, and she collapses against the chest of her friend. He wraps his arms around her, breathing heavily.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I think so. Thank you. So much."

"Has this happened before?"

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes? More than once?" He stiffens, and his arms tighten, though he does not crush her to him, only holds her steady. "Have they ever hurt you?"

"Not … significantly, no."

He clenches his jaw. "I'm sorry. You ought to have security back here, keeping an eye on things."

She runs a hand along his back, grateful for his presence, for the strong muscular solidity of him. Her fingers snag in the seam along his shoulder, and she laughs, startled.

"What?"

"You tore your jacket," she says. "You punched him so hard you tore your jacket."

Before he can object, she slips her hands underneath the front of his jacket, across his chest and then over his shoulders, sliding the jacket off of him in one smooth motion.

"Hey," he protests. "That's mine."

She pulls it on over her dress. "I'm borrowing it. I'll fix it for you tomorrow, if— _if_ —you promise to keep this from happening again."

His voice is surprisingly serious as they step out from the dark hallway into the bright lights of the concert hall. "Always."

  
***

  
This is how it goes: 

She arrives for soundcheck. He isn't there yet—but somehow, by the time the crowd enters and the lights dim, he has appeared, though she never sees him come in. She sings, and he listens, and she has to tear her eyes from him so that she can sing for everyone. But even then, she knows he's there, listening.

And then he is there, backstage, waiting for her. The stagehands and engineers know him, expect him. Her friends come to expect him, too—as her friend, as her bodyguard, easygoing and ready with a joke up until the moment she needs him to be strong for her.

In those moments, he's at her side sometimes even before she realizes there is a threat.

There are those who hate or fear her music, and there are those who love her music too much to understand the humanity of the woman underneath it—but when trouble arises, he is always there. Always.

  
***

  
"Do you want to come to rehearsal?" she asks him. "Tomorrow?"

He looks down at her with heavily lidded eyes, and that quirked half-smile that tells her he's already laughing inside at what he's about to say. "I don't think I can make rehearsal, but I was kind of hoping for a private concert tomorrow night, if you're free?"

She sucks in a breath, tilts her head to consider him, wonders if he is asking what she thinks he's asking. Despite the cockiness of his smile, his eyes are uncertain, questioning, hopeful.

"All right," she says, and his entire face brightens—is he actually surprised by this?—and she reaches out to press a fingertip flat against his lips. For a moment, the smirk is gone, the laughter is gone, and he watches her with that now-familiar intensity. This is the first time she's experienced it so close, and it takes her breath again. His lips soften and part, ever so slightly, against her finger.

"You sure about this?" he asks in a low voice.

She mentally reaches for the joke that has flown quite out of her head, and too late, she catches it. "Yes. Under one condition."

He raises his eyebrows, nods, makes her finger buzz with a quiet "mm-hmm?"

"I get to hear _you_ sing."

  
***

  
He is sweet and considerate. He takes his time. He makes her laugh, often.

And he has the most _wonderful_ voice.

**Author's Note:**

> This got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it down.


End file.
